Posted tagged ‘Friends of the Columbia Gorge’

TKO volunteers scouting the Dogwood Trail at Punchbowl Park in early 2017

Author’s note: many of you know that I’ve been involved with Trailkeepers of Oregon (TKO) since we formed in 2007 — in fact, I’m the sole remaining founder still serving on the TKO board! For the past few years, I’ve also been serving as the board president, but I’ll be handing the reins for that role over to a new president in January so that I can refocus my efforts with the board on trail stewardship and advocacy projects… and few more articles here, too!

While this blog is normally focused on Mount Hood and the Gorge, I hope you’ll indulge me (again) in wearing my TKO hat on this #GivingTuesday in a pitch for your support of TKO — especially if you spend time on our public trails. You can donate through either of these portals:

You’re also welcome to join our volunteer crews (really!), but anyone can support us by becoming a member. To make this article it a bit more interesting, the following is a bit of history of the organization. If you’d like to learn more about TKO, read on…!

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Way back in 2006, local hikers Jeff Statt and Jeff Black created the Portland Hikers Forum, a private web board for hikers and trail enthusiasts. The community grew quickly, but never became a profitable commercial endeavor — as was the case with most forums in those days.

Our founding trip to the Old Vista Ridge Trail in September 2007

Instead, the Portland Hikers Forum proved to be a great tool for organizing. With the hiking community increasingly alarmed by the state of trail maintenance in Oregon, several of us organized what would become TKO’s founding trail project in the summer of 2007.

That trail is now known as the Old Vista Ridge Trail, and at the time was a largely forgotten, completely overgrown route on Mount Hood north side. An ancient “Trail Not Maintained” sign was bolted to a tree, an unintended challenge for a group of hikers looking to reverse the trend of trail neglect!

Our founding president, Jeff Statt at Angels Rest in 2008

After an inspiring (and tiring!) day of brushing out huckleberries and mountain ash, much progress was made in restoring the old route, and the idea of TKO was born. But while the need for volunteer help at Old Vista Ridge was obvious, it was also completely unsanctioned, and it was clear that something more formal (an sanctioned) was needed to launch a bona fide stewardship program.

Shortly after the trip, Jeff Statt organized the first meeting of the as-yet un-named organization dedicated to trail stewardship. The invitees included non-profits with an interest in trails and conservation and land managers from the U.S. Forest Service and Oregon Parks and Recreation. The strong consensus at this inaugural meeting was that a need existed for an organization like TKO to take the lead on trail stewardship in Oregon — and so the work began to launch a new non-profit!

Our first NEW trail — a re-route of the Angels Rest Trail in 2008

Early on, the board consisted of non-profit staff from supporting organizations, including Friends of the Columbia Gorge, the Pacific Crest Trail Association, Northwest Forest Conservancy, Trails Club of Oregon, Washington Trails Association (WTA) and BARK.

Friends of the Gorge, in particular, mentored TKO in those early days, and continues to be our strongest partner. The CRAG Law Center was also an essential resource for us in those early days, helping us navigate the legal path toward non-profit status.

TKO volunteers building the re-route at Angels Rest in 2008

The new organization was initially called the Oregon Trails Conservancy. That name lasted for a few months, then evolved into the Trails Association of Oregon (TAO), mirroring the WTA, our someday model for growing the organization. By mid-2008, the board decided that “TAO” wasn’t quite the right acronym for the group, and Trailkeepers of Oregon — or TKO — was finally born.

Volunteer artist (and founding board member) Jamie Chabot created the iconic logo that we still use today. It’s a modern twist on the old CCC themes of the 1930s, including the fir tree at the center that echoes details found in some of the CCC structures at the Eagle Creek Campground in the Columbia River Gorge.

By early 2008, TKO had already sponsored several stewardship projects, mostly focused on trail maintenance and restoration in places around the greater Portland region. But in April 2008, we kicked off our first “new” project, a major re-route of the heavily used (over-used, really) Angels Rest Trail in the Columbia Gorge.

The project involved cutting a new trail through a thicket of Bigleaf maple whips that had grown up in the wake of the 1991 Multnomah Falls Fire that swept across Angels Rest. It was tough work, but seeing a completely new trail come to life was a big step forward for TKO, and helped us focus our mission on the need for more new trails to keep pace with growing demand in the region.

We were on our way!

One of TKO’s enthusiastic volunteers installing a new culvert at Camp Wilkerson Park in 2012

The finished culvert at Camp Wilkerson in 2012

By 2009, Jeff Statt had transferred ownership of the (then) Portland Hikers Forum and Field Guide to TKO for $1, and TKO adopted its core mission of “stewardship (our trail projects), education (our field guide) and community (our forum)” that still guides the organization today.

Dozens of trail projects followed, often in state and county parks, where land managers were eager for the volunteer labor and TKO enjoyed the surprising lack of red tape that comes with volunteering on our federal lands. These included new trails at places like Stub Stewart State Park, Tryon Creek State Park, Camp Wilkerson County Park and Beaver Falls County Park.

Happy volunteers at Camp Wilkerson after a good day of trailkeeping!

Another big change came in 2013, when TKO re-named our forum and field guide from the familiar “Portland” to “Oregon”. This change reflected TKO’s statewide mission, and the need to be inclusive beyond the Portland metropolitan area — though our forum and field guide continue to include Southwest Washington as a natural extension of the greater Portland region.

In 2014, TKO’s somewhat clunky website was upgraded by volunteers to allow for online event registration — another big step forward, and one that allowed us to accelerate our stewardship projects and have a bigger impact on the ground. This ushered in a new era of many more trail projects and TKO finally winning some grants to help fund our work.

Teaming up with the Washington Trails Alliance (WTA) on the new Cape Horn Trail in 2012

WTA & TKO volunteers at Cape Horn in 2012

The first of these grants came from REI in 2016, and allowed TKO to purchase enough tool sets for two additional crews of up to 12 volunteers, greatly expanding our impact.

More grants followed from REI and Travel Oregon in 2017, allowing us to celebrate TKO’s 10th anniversary by hiring Steve Kruger as first executive director. Bringing Steve onboard has had a huge impact on our ability to manage our ever-growing schedule of trail projects and our Oregon Hikers Forum and Oregon Hikers Field Guide. Steve is also a skilled crew leader, and regularly takes our volunteers into the field for trail projects.

We’ve also started a membership program in 2017, and as mentioned in the introduction to this article, I hope you’ll consider joining TKO! We’re a 501(c)(3) non-profit, and this year were selected to be in Willamette Week’s Give! Guide — and that’s the preferred way to donate, though you can also join at our website. Both links are at the top of the article.

TKO volunteer heading up the Eagle Creek Trail in 2013 for some viewpoint maintenance

The author at the Metlako Falls viewpoint after restoring the view in 2013

Here are some highlights of what TKO has been doing for Oregon’s trails over the past few years, by the numbers:

Since we started up the membership program a few weeks ago, we already have 170 members and counting!

Our work is winning us grants — $45,000 over the past 18 months — to help us continue to take care of Oregon’s trails

We kicked off our first micro-donations drive this fall on the Oregon Hikers forum, with 174 donors contributing in our first online campaign

On October 27th in we hosted the first annual Oregon Trails Summit in Bend, Oregon. More than 200 trail advocates, nonprofit partners, land managers and other private businesses took part

Yes, the boardwalk at Mirror Lake was still there when TKO crews cleared the brush in 2014!

TKO crews repairing the tread on the Mirror Lake Trail in 2014

Many of you have asked me about the future of trails in the Gorge after the Eagle Creek Fire after an earlier article in the blog about the fire. In early October, the Forest Service called a meeting of Gorge advocates a few weeks ago to begin planning the recovery, and Steve Kruger and I were there on behalf of TKO. While there were dozens of organizations represented, the eyes in the room kept turning toward TKO as the question of restoring our Gorge trails emerged as the most pressing concern.

As the meeting wrapped up, the Forest Service and State Parks staff turned to us, as well. Everyone is looking to TKO to help lead this effort.

So, that’s the good news. But as much as TKO has earned our growing reputation, we’re also a very young organization with a lot of work ahead of us to become the truly statewide force that we’ve always known Oregon needed.

Planning the West Fork Trail at Punchbowl Park in 2016

TKO volunteers building the new Deadpoint Falls overlook at Punchbowl Park in 2017

Building the Dogwood Trail at Punchbowl Park in 2017

What’s next for TKO? Here’s what we’re planning for 2018 — and what our membership program and other fundraising efforts will help deliver:

Columbia River Gorge – in response to the Eagle Creek Fire, facilitate Gorge Trails Recovery Team with trail skills workshops, restoration of our legacy trails and a renewed effort to expand trails in the Gorge in areas that were not affected by the fire

Mt Hood National Forest – district by district, plan for Treasured Landscapes campaign in partnership with the National Forest Foundation and position TKO to be central to trails stewardship and future planning

Oregon Coast Trail – establish presence for supporting OCT initiatives and build a stewardship program on the north Oregon Coast, starting with a new trail link from Manzanita to Neahkahnie Mountain.

Steve Kruger’s work will continue to focus on TKO’s development and expanding our partnerships with public agencies, nonprofits and corporate sponsors to expand our reach and build a sustainable nonprofit statewide

TKO crews re-routing a section of the Mosier Plateau trail last Friday

Meadow sod from the new trail was used to decommission the old, eroded route

We’re also planning to supplement our volunteer crew leader program with interns from the Student Conservation Association to bring new crews to the Oregon Coast, Mount Hood and Columbia Gorge. This will allow us to put still more volunteers on the ground where they are needed.

TKO will also sponsor a second-annual Oregon Trails Summit in 2018, and will help facilitate statewide coalition and advocacy efforts through the newly created Oregon Office of Outdoor Recreation

If all of this sounds exciting… well, it is! Thanks for reading this far and considering a donation or membership with TKO, everyone — we’ll make sure your support counts!

Time is running out on the Restore Warren Falls! project. This summer the next phase of the Historic Columbia River Highway (HCRH) State Trail project will begin construction of a segment that will pass right in front of the falls.

The new trail construction in the area is not simply an ideal opportunity to finally undo what the Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) did to this magnificent waterfall 76 years ago — it’s probably the only opportunity in our lifetimes.

In that spirit, I thought an update on the project and Warren Falls was in order — plus share a bit of a bombshell that was sent to me recently!

Checking in on Warren Falls

First, a quick visit to Warren Creek: in mid-April I made a couple visits to Warren Falls as part of my twice-annual Friends of the Gorge hikes. As has become the norm in recent years, the natural falls clearly flowed again this winter during heavy runoff that overwhelmed the diversion weir at the top of the falls.

The flood path from the briefly reborn falls cleared leaf debris as shown by the arrows in this photo…

…and in this photo, where the overflow stream continued down the ancient creekbed

These regular overflows make more sense when you look at the condition of the weir — the following photos from the top of the falls show just how clogged the giant “trash rack” has become, and also how badly the upper lip of the rack has been exposed as the concrete diversion dam continues to erode:

Over its 76-year life the enormous weir has become twisted and clogged with debris, causing more overflows each year

The steel beams that make up the weir are also coming loose from their foundation as the concrete diversion dam deteriorates with time

The Friends of the Gorge hikers always marvel at the strange, unsettling scene of a dry waterfall. Like most who visit Warren Falls, many are also saddened by the idea that the ODOT could have been so cavalier in altering such a beautiful scene at Warren Creek so grotesquely.

While the original decision to divert the falls can arguably be blamed on the thinking of the era (late 1930s), I would submit that allowing this tragic mistake to continue to exist is equally cavalier and dismissive of the natural landscape at Warren Creek. Thus, my campaign to attach the burden of undoing the mess at Warren Falls to ODOT — and in particular, their looming state trail construction project that will soon begin in the area.

Gorge Friends hike at Warren Creek in April

While researching Warren Falls over the winter, I finally found a definitive story on the official naming of the creek. The name “Warren” comes from Warren “Barney” Cooper, and early forest ranger in the Mount Hood area (and part of the Cooper family described in this previous article).

This Oregonian article documents (in the last paragraph) when Warren Cooper’s name finally became the official name of the creek in 1948, though it had been in unofficial use for years:

So, we now learn that Warren Lake and creek were once called “Warm Lake” and “Warm Creek”. Warren Lake is situated on a high, rocky shoulder of Mount Defiance, and shallow enough to be “warm” in late summer, so that could be the simplest explanation for this early name.

The name “Warren” appears on maps and early documents from well before this 1948 decision, so the timing of the article is interesting, especially so long after Warren Cooper’s death in 1920. Was the naming in 1948 simply cartographic housekeeping or an overdue recognition of a pioneering forest ranger by those who followed him?

OFG’s Vince Patton and Michael Bendixen looking for the illusive Warren Falls in the winter of 2012

Most surprising among the proposals were offers to simply “monkey-wrench” the weir at the top of the falls to speed up its demise! While I’m sympathetic to both the frustration and impatience behind the monkey-wrenchers out there, I’m also concerned that tinkering with the weir might actually be illegal (though it’s hard to see how a decaying structure that no public agency will claim responsibility for could somehow also become the basis for legal action..?)

More importantly, I’m concerned that formally removing the weir and associated debris will become increasingly difficult if the structure is further compromised. I’ve therefore thanked the monkey-wrenchers for their passion, but encouraged them to be patient and allow the slow wheels of government to turn a bit further..!

…and the bombshell…

Another piece of information that trickled in from an anonymous attorney and friend of Warren Falls is found in plain sight: in the Oregon Revised Statutes. Specifically, ORS 538.200, which exists solely to prohibit the diversion of “streams forming waterfalls near the Columbia River Highway” for “any purpose whatsoever”.

While quite clear in its intent, this might seem like a very general reference. But the statute (which was signed into law in the early 1900s, before the Warren Falls diversion) goes on to list each of the streams and waterfalls that fall under this protection — including Warren Creek, in ORS 538.200(26)!

An unusual view of Warren Creek topping its weir and overflowing into its natural falls (visible behind the trees)

What does this new information mean? For starters, it means that ODOT — at the time, called the Oregon Highway Division — broke the law in 1939 when it blasted a diversion tunnel and erected a dam and weir to pipe Warren Creek away from its natural falls and streambed. That is quite clear.

What is unknown is whether the ODOT decision to defy the law in the late 1930s was brazen in its intent. As hard as that possibility is to believe, it is also very hard to believe the agency wouldn’t have known about the law, given that it had been enacted just a few years prior the Warren Falls diversion project being concocted in the early 1930s — and was specifically aimed at the state’s premier highway of the era.

What does it mean today? In my view, it means that ODOT now has BOTH a legal and ethical responsibility to undo what it has done to Warren Falls. That couldn’t be more clear.

The End Game?

For the past four years I’ve been beating the drum to connect the restoration of Warren Falls to the massive, multi-million dollar Historic Columbia River Highway state trail project, without much success. So far I have:

• been turned away by both Oregon State Parks and the U.S. Forest Service, both claiming the falls lies on the other agency’s property (though it quite clearly falls on Oregon State Parks land)

• unsuccessfully pitched the cause to three of the premier conservation groups active in the Gorge, including on-site tours, but did not persuade any of the groups to adopt the cause.

• unsuccessfully made the case twice before the Historic Columbia River Highway steering committee, with some sympathetic interest from the committee, but a deep reluctance to seriously consider the idea. It was added as an item “for consideration” — but later dropped due to cost concerns.

• successfully pitched the idea to the producers of Oregon Field Guide story, and while ODOT staff involved in that effort were sympathetic to the state of Warren Falls, the publicity created by the story did not change their recommendations to their steering committee for any further consideration of restoring the falls.

• posted a string of articles on this blog and started a Facebook group two years ago to continue to rally the cause, but these efforts haven’t made a noticeable dent at ODOT, either.

We are now in the end game, and I don’t think the Warren Falls will ever be restored if the work doesn’t happen when ODOT has heavy equipment in the area later this year. After that, it will most likely be up to Mother Nature, and that’s would be such a sad commentary to future generations when they judge the state of the world we choose to leave them.

From the beginning, I have argued that restoring the falls isn’t about money, but rather, about responsibility. ODOT created the mess that now exists at Warren Creek, and for a whole variety of safety, ethical, environmental — and now, legal — reasons that I’ve argued over the years, it’s time for the agency to own up to their responsibility.

No fooling, ODOT has $2 million annually in a “contingency” fund for exactly the kind of work that restoring Warren Falls would entail — and just allocated another half-million dollars to cover additional costs for the state trail project in the Warren Creek area.

It turns out the money has always been there, too. On April 1, ODOT quietly pulled nearly a half-million dollars in “contingency” funds into this latest phase of the state trail as a consent item before the Oregon Transportation Commission. The new money is for a previously unplanned bridge over nearby Gorton Creek, a worthy addition at the east end of the current phase of construction. Warren Falls could be restored for a fraction of that amount – if only the will and sense of agency responsibility at ODOT existed.

My next efforts will focus beyond ODOT, given my fruitless efforts to work with the agency. At the top of my list of arguments is the newly discovered fact that the agency violated state law when they built the project in 1939 — underscoring the notion that ODOT has both ethical and legal obligations to own up to restoring the falls. The agency clearly has funding available for worthy efforts like this one if the desire exists. I will be making that argument, as well.

There’s still time to realize this vision… but not much.

I’ll post a follow-ups to article with more details soon, and especially how you might be able to help get the restoration of Warren Falls unstuck from our state bureaucracy. Most of all, a big thanks to all who have offered to help — and as always, thank you reading this blog and caring about Mount Hood and the Gorge!